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Thursday

Why Is Tesla Making A "Home Battery"?

Tesla, the electric car maker, is bringing us a battery for our homes - why? Well, one of the problems with renewable energy sources like solar and wind is that they are sometimes not available - it gets dark or cloudy, and the wind does not always blow (unless you live on the East coast of Scotland, but I digress).

People who rely on such to power their homes or to augment their power needs would welcome a way of storing energy while it's abundant, so they can use it at night or on calm days; hence, a home battery.

Tesla has already built stationary batteries for homes in partnership
with SolarCity, a solar panel company that has Tesla CEO Elon Musk as a
chairman. SolarCity says it has installed
300 Tesla-branded energy storage units in homes so far. Traditionally,
people with solar panels on their roofs sell the excess electricity made
during the day back to power companies and then buy power from power
companies at night. With a battery pack, a house equipped with solar
panels can be more self-sufficient.